New Orleans Part 6 (last post)~Serio's Muffaletta

On our last day in New Orleans, K., A., and I went to Serio's which was a restaurant that was challenged by Bobby Flaw on the show "Throwdown." Serio's muffuletta beat Bobby Flay's version of this sandwich filled with an olive spread, salami, and some other Italian cold cuts on a thick bun. That sandwich was massive! K. ordered a half muff and look, she can hardly fit it in here mouth!



I opted for the "Greenie" Po'boy filled with turkey, lettuce , and italian dressing. A. had a shrimp po'boy. The food was tasty here and the portions were huge!







\

New Orleans Part 4~Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse

After our second place win, a former student of our advisor who works at Tate & Lyle took the Product Development team to dinner at Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse. Thank you Tate & Lyle for the yummy dinner!

The steak was probably the best dish I consumed while in New Orleans. I guess my palate is not familiar with creole food, therefore I do not care for the tastes I experienced over the past few days. E. and I decided to share a steak and order a bunch of sides. She was intrigued by the "Wedge Salad" made out of Boston Bibb Lettuce. This about it, how can you cut a wedge out of a soft head of lettuce? You can do it with romaine or iceberg because the leaves are crisp and firm, but not a softie like bibb. Anyways, to quench our curiosity we ordered it and found out it was half a head of lettuce.


We ordered a wild mushroom saute which was a bit overcooked. boo mushrooms.
I wanted to try the BBQ shrimp because the previous night I had a wonderful BBQ shrimp salad at a bar called "Alibi" and thought that maybe I'd have the same luck at Dickie Brennan's.
This is the other E.'s vegetarian platter. She was relieved that there was a vegetarian option at the Steakhouse. It had not been on the menu but when she started ordering salad, a baked potato, and asparagus, the waiter asked her if she was a vegetarian.

For kicks (I'm keeping my blog PG) and giggles, here's a picture of me after dinner with a Bourbon street sign.

New Orleans Part 3~ The Food Expo

Although it may seem that all I did in New Orleans was eat, I did spend most of my days at the IFT conference. Here's some proof:
I admit that I am short, but J. (the guy behind me) is like 6 feet something so it's even more apparent. In Hawaii, my height is not that noticeable.


Check out the different flavors or salsa. Blueberry& Bacon; Kiwi, Tomatillo, and Watercress; Acai Roasted Salsa. I thought that the tomatillo and kiwi would work well together because they both have a light green tinge and seeds. Nope, all three salsas were borderline disasters.
It's interesting to note that there was another company there which produced food bars made out of the scraps of vegetables and fruits. Some of the bars they made incorporated potato peels, cantaloupe rinds, carrot peelings... I do not know what the company was thinking...okay, let me rephrase this, I know what the company was thinking. They were trying to eliminate waste and create a food product that people would enjoy. Ewww....seriously, I am all about saving the environment, but really I do not think pets would enjoy these products.
When I spoke to the lady at the booth she told me, "Yes, we're a new company, and we just developed these products three weeks ago." All the while, I'm thinking to myself, "This is why companies should do consumer insight testing and/or hire sensory scientists."
Griffith Laboratories pulled pork sandwich with slightly sweet lime pita chips was delicious! I would have tweaked the flavoring a tad bit, but the pulled pork and slaw flavors were spot-on. They also had plantain chips that were quite tasty too! When you are a company that produces flavoring blends, your food should taste good! There were many other food companies with delicious foods at the Expo. Tate & Lyle was promoting "Promitor" which is a corn soluble fiber and the Kerry Group had a bunch of tasty products and I tried a lobster broth that one of my friends developed.
If you're interested, Mintel had a booth showcasing the International food trends. Last year I checked out the booth and most if not all of the trends they forecast were seen in the market.

New Orleans Part 2~ Olivier's Restaurant

The next restaurant restaurant we visited was Olivier's Creole Restaurant. K. and T. had found this restaurant online and it was on the Food Network's website, so we decided to check it out. It was nice to see everyone again because during the summer most of us are off doing internships. J.'s at Kellog's, E. is at General Mills, and T. is at Wrigleys.
T. thought the food was amazing and was four out of five stars (I think). I guess I'm a picky eater (I'd like to think I have an excellent palate) because I wasn't impressed with the taste, but it was definitely better than Pat O'Brien's. I think that the consensus was that the food was quite tasty, but not "amazing" as T. put it.

Our meals started off with a house salad. I really enjoyed the dressing which consisted of garlic, a blend of spices, and olive oil. I chose to order the Taster's Platter (I labeled this seafood sampler). Everything on the plate except for the gumbo was fried...fried shrimp, oysters, catfish, and crabcakes. If you haven't noticed, I tend to order items with multiple selections so that I can maximize my dining pleasure. Also, just in case I do not like something, I have the other options to pick on. So if there is the word "trio," "sampler," or "tasting," I usually order that dish.



Here's some other pictures for you all to enjoy.

New Orleans Part 1~Pat O'Brien's

Half of the "Dream Team" (UIUC's Product Development team) arrived on Friday night. We began our travels at 10:45am Friday morning and transported our "Dream Pie Bars" on dry ice. Surprisingly we did not encounter a lot of hassle from airport security about the fact that we were carrying dry ice onto the plane.

We started the night off at Pat Obrien's which is famous for their hurricane drinks. I drank about an inch of my drink (~1 oz) and felt the alcohol and stopped drinking that thing. See those red drinks, they have about 4 shots of rum in them!

I ordered the sampler which was a trio of gumbo, crawfish etouffee, and jambalaya. I do not know exactly what I was expecting from creole food, but I thought the taste of these New Orleans delicacies were mediocre. At this point of my trip, I was a bit disappointed with New Orleans food. The others ordered crawfish cakes, jambalaya, and shrimp creole. Unfortunately I took blurry pictures of those dishes, so I can't post about them.